Saturday, 21 September 2013

On Sunday March 6th
2011 our campaign began, a protest march in Ballyhea with just 18 people, against
the imposition of private bank-debt on the public purse, the Irish people
forced into generations of debt slavery to Europe. Every week since then we
have marched, sometimes twice and three times in the same week. This Sunday, September
22nd 2013, will be week 134.

OUR CAMPAIGN GOES TO EUROPE

On March 27th of this
year we met
Sharon Bowles MEP, Chair of ECON, the EU Economics and Monetary Affairs
Committee, the body to which the ECB reports every three months. That meeting
has set off a chain of events which (hopefully!) hasn’t yet peaked but which
has resulted in us having meetings since then with:

David
Harmon, European Commission, Member of the cabinet of Commissioner Máire
Geoghegan-Quinn.

In the meantime we have also (and
with great assistance from Paul Murphy MEP) submitted a petition
for bank-debt write-off on behalf of Ballyhea, Charleville and all the other various
Says No groups around Ireland, to the Europe Parliament Petitions Committee.

It’s been an eventful few months,
an eventful few years, certainly not what any of us thought we’d be doing when
we took those first steps onto the road in Ballyhea. The original intention was
to alert our media and our people to what was being done to us, have the whole
country out in protest, force this government to do what they had said they’d
do – what we elected them to do – and take our fight to Europe. Instead that
government has taken Europe’s fight to us, Enda Kenny and his officer corps
duly rewarded with slaps on the back by our new masters.

So we are forced to do this for
ourselves, forced to make our own contacts in the various layers of the European
administration, forced to go Europe at our own expense to meet with and talk to
those contacts, presenting to them our own proposals
on how the bank-debt write-down can be achieved.

We do it with a heart and a half,
but a heavy heart-and-a-half. Through the two-and-a-half years of this
campaign, through those same two-and-a-half years of this administration, our
Taoiseach Enda Kenny and our Finance Minister Michael Noonan have both
proclaimed, even boasted,
that they have never asked for debt write-down. Always however people were
holding out the hope that this was merely a front, that behind the scenes they
were playing hardball.

They weren’t. Patrick Honahan,
who as Governor of the Central Bank of Ireland and as a member of the ECB Governing
Council has a foot in both camps, confirmed this himself to us. We have also
had this confirmed in our far more frank and far more up-front meetings with
the Europeans.

FAILURE OF OUR GOVERNMENT TO NEGOTIATE

Those meetings have at times been
hot and heavy but always, they’ve been educational. What we’ve learned above
all else is this: even in the highest
echelons of the various European layers of administration the Ballyhea protest
is known, our grievances acknowledged, the Promissory Notes element especially.
There is a recognition that Ireland has taken a big hit in this euro-crisis, a
recognition also that this hit has been disproportional. We have been told that
‘debt relief’ for Ireland is inevitable; however, debt write-down will not
happen unless our government actually asks for it – we were encouraged to go
back to Ireland and work on this.

So why hasn’t our government
asked? One possible explanation that was offered to us – Enda Kenny, Michael Noonan
and the rest have been going around the world promoting themselves as the
poster-boys of Europe, the miracle-workers of Ireland, turning this economy
around all on their own. Were they now to ask for debt write-down it would give
the lie to all those claims. Ego, that’s what it all seems to boil down to, our
government still trying to fool the world (and largely succeeding) even as they
slowly crush their own people.

HALF-TRUTH, SPIN

‘Unemployment is down!’ they
scream, ‘GDP is up, we’re out of recession!’ The numbers they do not broadcast,
however, what they don’t tell the world – the record emigration
figures, highest since the catastrophic years of the Great Hunger in the 1840s;
the increase in suicides
as people choose death over the life being imposed on them by this government.
Families and entire communities are being ripped apart and with the proposed
cuts/taxes of another €5.1bn in the next two Budgets, the full Home Tax due in January,
worse is still to come. Out of recession? As economist Constantin Gurdgiev so
succinctly puts it – no, this patient isn’t in recovery, we’re in an induced
coma.

NEXT ON OUR AGENDA

·Acting on the advice received in Europe, we are now

working
with a number of opposition TDs and in the process of putting direct
pressure on our government to demand debt write-off – we will keep everyone
posted on this;

Working with a number of MEPs (not necessarily
all Irish either) we are also going to put direct pressure on the European Parliament
– likewise, we will keep ye posted;

We will be following up on our Petition
submission by asking every Irish MEP to sign up in support, but we will also
extend that invitation to all other MEPs;

On Saturday November 9th 2013 we will
be co-hosting with Debt and Development Coalition Ireland (DDCI) an all-day
event in the Charleville Park Hotel – more details later.

We are not for stopping, we are
not for giving up. The backbone of all these efforts is the weekly march, not
just in Ballyhea/Charleville but now in various other centres around the
country – this is our campaign, all of us. Regardless of our numbers, however, regardless
of the number of weeks we’ve been marching or the number of centres, the cause
has never changed, remains as just as ever. As long as this burden is imposed,
we will protest, we will campaign.

Friday, 20 September 2013

(Apologies for the appearance, it was formatted in Word, hasn't copied at it originally appears)

PREFACE:The objective of this petition is
to request the Union to compensate the citizens of Ireland for the damage
caused by the negligence of the EU Institutions (including the ECB, the
European Commission and the European Council) in the performance of their
duties relative to the euro.

RELEVANCE:ARTICLE
2 OF THE TREATY ON EUROPEAN UNION:

The
Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the
rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons
belonging to minorities.

ARTICLE 3 OF THE TREATY ON EUROPEAN
UNION:

1. The
Union's aim is to promote peace, its values and the well-being of its peoples.

3. The
Union shall establish an internal market. It shall work for the sustainable development of Europe based on balanced
economic growth and price stability, a highly competitive social market
economy, aiming at full employment and
social progress, and a high level of protection and improvement of the
quality of the environment. It shall promote scientific and technological
advance.

It
shall combat social exclusion and discrimination, and shall promote social
justice and protection,
equality between women and men, solidarity
between generations and protection of the rights of the child.

It
shall promote economic, social and territorial cohesion, and solidarity among
Member States.

ARTICLE 10 OF THE TREATY ON EUROPEAN
UNION:

3. Every citizen shall have the right
to participate in the democratic life of the Union. Decisions shall be taken as openly and as closely as possible to the
citizen.

ARTICLE 41 OF THE EU CHARTER – RIGHT TO
GOOD ADMINISTRATION:

1. Every
person has the right to have his or her affairs handled impartially, fairly
and within a reasonable time by the Institutions,
bodies and agencies of the Union.

3.
Every person has the right to have the Union make good any damage caused by its
Institutions or by its servants in the performance of their duties, in
accordance with the general principle common to the laws of the Member States.

CONTEXT:Because of the failure of the
Eurozone countries to agree on the necessary central controls, the Euro was fundamentally
and seriously flawed in its design, should not have been launched without those
controls.

The problems that subsequently arose in Ireland were foretold in an article byBelgian
economist Paul de Grauwe from the Financial
Times in 1998 in which he wrote:

‘Suppose a country, which we
arbitrarily call Spain, experiences a boom which is stronger than in the rest
of the euro-area. As a result of the boom, output and prices grow faster in
Spain than in the other euro-countries. This also leads to a real estate boom
and a general asset inflation in Spain. Since the ECB looks at euro-wide data,
it cannot do anything to restrain the booming conditions in Spain. In fact the
existence of a monetary union is likely to intensify the asset inflation in
Spain. Unhindered by exchange risk vast amounts of capital are attracted from
the rest of the euro-area. Spanish banks that still dominate the Spanish
markets, are pulled into the game and increase their lending. They are driven
by the high rates of return produced by ever increasing Spanish asset prices,
and by the fact that in a monetary union, they can borrow funds at the same
interest rate as banks in Germany, France etc. After the boom comes the bust.
Asset prices collapse, creating a crisis in the Spanish banking system.

Too far-fetched
to be realistic? The US monetary union provides many examples of such local
booms and busts followed by financial crises that lead to large scale bail-out
operations. Scenarios of local booms and bust, as the one just described, will
almost certainly happen in the future euro-area. The essential ingredient
triggering such crises is the existence of regional differences in rates of
return on assets coupled with the fact that in a monetary union banks can
borrow at the same interest rates’.

Well,
it did happen in Spain, but it also happened in Ireland. Within
eight years all that de Grauwe had foretold came to pass and as a result, the Irish people have been
burdened with a bank debt of nearly €70bn (per Namawinelake blog July 8th
2012: AIB/EBS €20.7bn; Bank of Ireland €4.7bn; Anglo/INBS €34.7bn; Irish Life &
Permanent €4bn; NAMA contribution €5.6bn) - that’s over €15,000 per individual,
a totally disproportionate burden loaded on the Irish people.

We
have been failed by those who designed and launched the euro; we have been
failed by those whose duty it was to oversee that currency, who allowed the
hundreds of billions to flow unchecked from one area of Europe to another, who
failed to monitor the impact this was having on those economies; we have been
failed by those whose duty it was to find a fair and equitable Europe-wide
solution to the problem.

FALLOUT:Due to those institutional failures
the Irish people are now faced with austerity measures which have led to emigration
levels unseen since the Great Hunger of the 1840s, unemployment levels whose
true rates are reduced by the level of emigration and deliberately disguised by
the numbers on various government schemes, mortgage arrears which are now at
crisis point, increased incidence of suicide, reductions in supports to the
most disadvantaged in our society. All this is quantifiable; what can’t be measured
is the impact all this is having on the human spirit, the loss of dignity –
there is no misery index.

SUMMARY:Incontravention of Article 2
of the Treaty on European Union, the imposition of this burden has seen a
marked reduction in the levels of human dignity;

In
contravention of Article 3.1 of the Treaty on European Union the imposition of
this burden has promoted a marked reduction in the well-being of the Irish
people;

In
contravention of Article 3.3 of the Treaty on European Union the imposition of
this burden has worked against the sustainable development of Europe based on
balanced economic growth – the devastation caused by the euro has seen a marked
imbalance developing (and still growing) in Europe;

Additionally,
and again contrary to Article 3.3, there is increased unemployment and reduced
social progress, a widening gap between the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’; with the
deliberate and repeated targeting of the most vulnerable in Irish society,
there is a reduction in social justice and protection;

Far
from there being ‘solidarity between generations and protection of the rights
of the child’, the legacy of this crisis in Ireland is debt-slavery to Europe
for generations as we are forced into paying a debt that was never ours;

In
final contravention of Article 3.3, promoting ‘economic, social and territorial
cohesion, and solidarity among Member States’, the selfishly ordained actions
of the major European so-called ‘core’ countries are promoting a return to the
kind of dangerous nationalism the original EU was established to combat, the demonization
of Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy, the characterisation of those
peoples as being somehow lesser beings, feckless, lazy, corrupt, contrasted
then against the glorification of those in that so-called ‘core’. As for
solidarity, when this crisis struck it became every man for himself, the bigger
and stronger countries dictating everything, Ireland bullied and coerced into
accepting a Memorandum of Understanding that in truth amounted to a bailout
only for the euro and for the major European banks at the expense of the Irish
people, who in fact got a bail-in – not a cent of debt writeoff but actually
the opposite, debt piled on debt;

Incontravention of Article 10 of the Treaty on
European Union, from the outset of this crisis major decision after major
decision has been taken without any consultation with the Irish people; we have
been burdened with this bank debt without ever a vote, without ever a choice;

In
contravention of its own rules which stipulate that Emergency Liquid Assistance
(ELA) can only be used temporarily, be provided against adequate collateral,
and be issued to illiquid but solvent institutions, on the back of PromissoryNotes which were never presented to the Irish Parliament for approval, the ECB
allowed the Central Bank of Ireland to issue €30.7bn to Anglo Irish Bank and
Irish Nationwide Building Society at a time when both were zombie banks, were
not systemic to the Irish banking system.

In
light of all the above, and citing Article 41.3 of the European Charter as
quoted on page 1, that ‘Every person has the right to have the Union
make good any damage caused by its Institutions or by its servants in the
performance of their duties,’ we
now petition this body to have this burden lifted, then shared fairly across
the entire Eurozone but also, shared fairly with those whose billions helped
fuel the crisis.

PROPOSALS:These are our three proposals:

1.To the ECB: Write off the €28.1bn in
sovereign bonds currently held by our Central Bank in lieu of the Promissory
Notes (€25bn + €3.1bn for the 2012 note), Notes that were issued in 2010 to
cover a flagrant abuse of the Emergency Liquidity Assistance fund when €31bn
was pumped in to two already insolvent institutions, Anglo Irish Bank and Irish
Nationwide Building Society, abuse the ECB itself approved;

2.To the EU: Through the ESM, restore to
the Irish Exchequer a) the €3.1bn already destroyed on the basis of those
Promissory Notes, b) the €20.7bn taken from our National Pension Reserve Fund
to bail out those banks and c) the remaining €12.2bn or so borrowed from the
various emergency funds to bail out the Irish banks.

3.To the EC: Propose a measure to impose
a levy on the finance industry that will see the billions their recklessness
has cost the peoples of Europe restored to those balance sheets, perhaps that
levy going directly to the ESM for redistribution to those countries affected.

The
first proposal will ease the long-term bank-debt burden and help end the
debt-slavery of future generations to Europe;

the second will ease the current situation,
give us money to invest in job-creation and thus enable us grow our way out of
this recession;

the
third will force retribution from those whose recklessness caused the crisis.

We thank you in advance for your forbearance, this
petition has been prepared without expert advice; we thank you in advance also
for considering this petition and trust that it will get due consideration and
receive a favourable verdict.

We have attached to this petition a series ofletters from a representative selection of those who march with us, letters
that represent more eloquently than any set of statistics the effect the
euro-launch and the subsequent consequent series of events has had on the
people of this country.

Wednesday, 11 September 2013

On
Monday evening last I ended up in a hostelry called (very aptly) The Local, on
the square in Dungarvan. It was an uplifting, energising, hugely positive
experience.

On
the previous day, Sunday September 8th, Waterford had won its first All-Ireland
minor hurling championship since 1948 and earlier that Monday evening in
Waterford city I had been on official Irish Examiner duty, covering the first
leg of their homecoming. Job done and story filed by 9.30pm, I headed west for
Dungarvan, check in there for an hour or so to see how the reception for the
team had gone, before heading on home.

And
this was it, this was where it was all brought home to me yet again why I so
love the GAA, why I so love this country.

The
Local was jam-packed, hopping. Hosted by the amiable Helena and Donnchadh Gough
(of Danú trad group fame), many of the players and management from the west-Waterford-dominated
team were in attendance.

In
one corner a four-piece band, but not just any four-piece. Fronted by former
county board chairman Paddy Joe Ryan, they play for charity and only for
charity, fund-raising for anyone and everyone but themselves. On this night,
they were there to honour the All-Ireland-winning minor team.

Current county board chairman Tom Cunningham joins the band

There
was music, song, conversation and laughter, always the laughter. And it struck
me.

BALLYHEA SAYS NO

For
132 weeks now (and counting) we've been marching in Ballyhea and Charleville in
protest against the imposition of private bank debt on the Irish people. I'm
not going into the details here; for a taste of what we're campaigning against,
see this 6-minute video.

Many
times in that two and a half years we've been asked why it is that our campaign
hasn't caught on, why the Irish people aren't all out marching with us.
Sheeple, some have called us, a tame subservient people. Nothing could be
further from the truth.

THE GAA

The
likes of Austin Gleeson, Shane and Stephen Bennett, DJ Foran, goals-scoring
hero Patrick Curran, Gavin Power, William Hahessey, team captain Kevin Daly – everyone
from 1 to 15 and on into the subs who won that All-Ireland title for Waterford,
though under-18, are already strong individuals, progressive high-achievers.

The victorious minors given a guard-of-honour by the seniors

Those
like Sean Power, Kevin O'Gorman, Wayne Power, John Treacy, everyone else in the
extended management team, they are the most selfless of people, individuals who
willingly and without recompense volunteer their spare time for the good of
others.

Those
others I met in The Local that night, people such as Waterford PRO Emer Barry
and her friend Vanessa Celisse, or Michael Kearney from the Nire, they too are
all giving freely of their time and it was because of people like those that
all of Waterford county, and every Waterford person in exile, could enjoy a
night like last Monday night.

The victorious squad salute the fans

They
came from the far east of the county, Michael 'Spud' Murphy and Damien Tiernan (his
RTE duties complete) from Passage, guys like Óisín Langan of Newstalk from the
west (like the Quaid brothers next door to us here in Effin, or the likes of
Gavin O’Mahony, Paudie O’Brien and Graeme Mulcahy from nearby Kilmallock, Óisín
had the misfortune to be born just the wrong side of the Cork border but is
making the best of it…).

Young
and old, male and female, from teams and clubs that would often tear strips off
each other, there they were in The Local and as is normal with any hurling or gaelic
football club, none of your usual societal divisions of class/education/wealth,
all united under that one roof and under that one banner in celebration.

That's
the GAA, that's how it pulls us together and in many another hostelry in many
another parish/town/county I've enjoyed many a night such as this. All those of
us in whom the GAA is ingrained and who equally are ingrained in the GAA, can
be grateful for it. From time to time we criticise its many inherent weaknesses
but when I hear people who know damnall about the organisation and its ethos
pontificate about the Grab-All-Association, I shake my head in wonder - such outright
ignorance.

That
is also the Irish people.

A SPECIAL PEOPLE

The
GAA is special; we, the Irish people, are special. I don't mean that in any
narrow, exclusive way. The above qualities are not confined to GAA players and
supporters, they are also to be found in those who likewise volunteer their
time and services in all the other sports organisations big and small
throughout the land, in all the other voluntary bodies that help to sustain us,
and they are found in other nations. 'The best sporting organisation in the
world', 'The best little country in the world' - I don't remember either of
those competitions ever being held, let alone being won by us.

I
don't mean it either though in the way the EU/EC/ECB mean it - we're 'special'
to them alright, special because in helping to preserve the euro and save some
of Europe's biggest banks, we have taken on bank debt that is massively
disproportionate – per capita no other country comes near (over €15,000 for every
man, woman and child).

We're
special in that we live life to the full. We don't just cope with hardship, we
thrive, we laugh, we take the worst that circumstance can throw at us and make
light of it – look at our ‘wakes’ for Godsake! Thus it is that almost anywhere
you go in the world, where the Irish are gathered there will be hard work yes,
there will be high achievers such as those Waterford youngsters, but there will
also be fun, gaiety, song and dance, and laughter.

We
know how to party, we know when to party. Monday night in Waterford was such an
occasion, Monday night in The Local in Dungarvan.

THE BOOM YEARS

To
most of us, especially to those of us who had been through the depression of
the 80s/early 90s, the Noughties too seemed to be such an occasion. The country
appeared to be booming, salaries were on the increase and on
radio/television/national newspapers most of the experts were telling us it was
here to stay.

‘Get on the property NOW or it will be too late!’, our young singles and newlyweds were told –
they did, in their tens of thousands.

‘Invest in that second property
NOW and secure your pension!’, those in middle age were advised by expert
after expert – they did, again in their tens of thousands.

The
warning signs were there and some – such as Morgan Kelly and David McWilliams -
tried to alert us; they were advised by our own Taoiseach of the day, Bertie
Ahern, to go off somewhere and ‘commit’ suicide. You don’t of course ‘commit’
suicide; people take their own lives with their own hands NOT because they want
to die, but because they can no longer take THIS life.

Well
Mr Ahern, it’s happening, by the tens of thousands across the country, and many
of the victims are of an age with those powerful young lads who won last Sunday’s
All-Ireland minor title, of an age with the superb Galway team they beat to do
so, of an age with many of the stars of the Clare and Cork teams that then
played an exhilarating draw in the senior final that followed.

THE BLAME GAME

We,
the people, are blamed for the banking tsunami that engulfed Ireland; we, the
people, are told that it’s our fault, even our current Taoiseach, Enda Kenny,
telling Europe as much. It’s nonsense of course.

The
people of this country didn’t cause the property bubble, they are the victims
of it.

The
people of this country didn’t cause the world-wide banking crisis, they are the
victims of it.

The
people of this country didn’t cause the euro crisis, they are the victims of
it.

Those
who DID
cause it, however, the international bankers and international investment
high-risk high-rollers whose billions fuelled the bubble here, in Europe, in
the USA, have used our own politicians and our own media to convince us that it
was our fault, and thus that we must pay. For their greed, for their mistakes,
for their failed gambles, we must pay.

They
are using that old Catholic guilt-complex against us – ‘What, you had fun???
You enjoyed yourself? You're Irish and you thought you were entitled to a BMW? For
that now you'll have to do penance.’

DRUNK ON LIFE

Though
I drank nothing but a glass of water, after several hours of banter, laughter,
song and dance I left The Local that night as drunk as I've ever been when
leaving any such an establishment, and God knows I've staggered from a few!
Exhausted from many weeks of long and stressful days in the lead-up to the
All-Ireland final, now into the early hours of the morning, the 90-minute drive
home to Ballyhea simply flew, my spirits soaring.

In
the fight to shine a light on what's been done to Ireland by Europe, what's
still being done, in continuing this campaign so deep into a third year, I
didn't need any renewal. We're doing this for our own generation, we're doing
it for those youngsters who brought such honour to Waterford last Sunday, we're
doing it even for the generation that will follow them, all of whom are now
faced with carrying this burden, debt-slaves to Europe.

I
already knew they were worth it. Siobhan and myself have two kids of our own, Niall
and Sadhbh, both now in college. We have met their friends, we know the talent
in that generation. I know too that in time, when they know as much as we in
the Ballyhea and Charleville campaign group know about what's been done and how
it's been done, the Irish people will take their stand and this bank-debt
burden will be shifted back whence it came.

THE BALLYHEA CAMPAIGN

In
the meantime, we’ll keep campaigning. We’ll march in Ballyhea next Sunday, week 133, we’ll
be in Brussels again next week, our fourth such visit. On Tuesday we’ll be
meeting the Petitions committee, on Wednesday meeting with economic advisers
from the office Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council.

For
that night, however, for those few thoroughly enjoyable hours in The Local, in
Dungarvan, in Waterford, from the bottom of my Ballyhea, Cork, Munster and
Irish heart, I thank you.